He might know how to fly a helicopter :)
That's not how that works. Please don't try that with your helicopters.
I'm imagining a helicopter with the same controls as a current one, but where the "balancing" act is done by computer. It's stable by default, and the human inputs controls to ascend, descend, rotate, or tilt in the desired direction. So a human could take their hands off the controls in a stationary helicopter and it would stay stationary. If the human wants to fly forward, they push the cyclic stick forward, and that's it, no need to compensate in the other controls.
Is this just not done because fly-by-wire would make helicopters even more expensive or less reliable? Are there any fly-by-wire helicopters today?
After writing this question I decided to do some web searches and came across http://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/23977/why-not-si... and a Wired article about a fly-by-wire helicopter: https://www.wired.com/2012/02/electrons-dominate-new-sixteen...
I'm looking for a description of what it's like to fly from a pilot. Haven't turned up anything yet.
Could this be adapted to a full-size craft? Possibly, but that's a serious engineering task that would involve a lot of development and testing.
For that reason, I think it is exceeding unlikely to think a 78 year old man, ill with cancer, would invent and equip a 3-axis fly-by-wire guidance control/autopilot system for a helicopter so he could rappel down and hide a treasure while a helicopter hovered overhead. Then after securing the treasure, he would presumably climb the rope to re-enter the craft, disable the attitude hold then fly away.
This sort of thing is best left to the James Bond films.
Here's a pretty good one. It appears to be constant 3-axis compensation, although he alludes to newer helicopters that have made it much easier.
Anyone can search the FAA Airman Database to look up pilot ratings.
I just searched and he is not listed.